Even with her analyst hat on and her coaching days five years in the rearview mirror, Hall-of-Fame coaching icon Muffet McGraw’s disappointment with the current Notre Dame women’s basketball team’s late-season skid was palpable.
But not terminal, or anything close to it.
“Absolutely fixable,” McGraw said in a phone interview Tuesday ahead of an afternoon round of golf and three days removed from ND’s truncated run in the ACC Tournament semis, with a 61-56 loss Saturday to eventual champ and 3 seed Duke.
“We have the talent. There’s no question that we’re good enough.”
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And the part-time assistant professor in ND’s Mendoza School of Business and 11 months a grandmother has history on her side in her assessment of protégé Niele Ivey’s now eighth-ranked Irish (26-5).
Each of ND’s national championship teams coached by McGraw, in 2001 and 2018, lost in their conference tourneys as well, before putting together a six-game win streak in the NCAA Tournament.
The Irish will find out their opponent and seed (likely 2 but perhaps 3) during ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show Sunday night at 8 EDT. It’s already a given they’ll host rounds 1 and 2 in South Bend, Ind. Those dates will be in the March 21-24 window to be determined on Sunday.
The Sweet 16 (March 28-29) and Elite Eight (March 30-31) will play out in four regionals but at two sites — Birmingham, Ala., and Spokane, Wash. McGraw has studio analyst duties with ESPN from the First Four up through the tournament’s second weekend.
The Final Four is set for April 4 and 6 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.
And McGraw won’t rule out a Notre Dame team that was No. 1 in both polls just three weeks ago from walking away with the title. Only 10 of the 42 NCAA champs haven’t been 1 seeds going in. But the most recent non-No. 1 in women’s hoops, third-seeded LSU, happened just two years ago.
“I think what happens when you win a lot of games, you’re playing a certain way and you’re very successful,” McGraw said of the Irish, who followed a 19-game win streak with three losses in five games. And then I think what happened in the Duke game, they took some of that away.
“And that was the first time really anybody has taken away what we’re really good at. They didn’t let us get into transition and forced us into the half-court game with their defense. If you saw the final with NC State (a 76-62 Duke win), I mean just fabulous. They’re the best defensive team in the league. So, I think we ran into some difficulties against that defense.
“And our defense has been good. But we had some breakdowns. I think that’s what we can fix. I’m sure everyone was disappointed. I know the fans — I feel that way too. I was disappointed. But in the locker room, I think there was a LOT more disappointment, and I think a renewed sense of, ‘We’ve got to fix this.’”
So what does that look like?
Two of the pieces to the solution puzzle are grad senior forward Maddy Westbeld and freshman center Kate Koval.
For the first game of her career in which she logged more than 13 minutes and the second of her 138 overall in an Irish uniform — 135 of those starts — Westbeld went scoreless in the loss to Duke on Saturday and had just one rebound in 27 minutes of court time.
Westbeld missed the first 13 games of this season coming back from offseason foot surgery. She averaged 14.4 points and 8.7 playing with the injured foot last season, and 16 points a game in ND’s three NCAA Tourney games last March.
She is averaging career lows in both points (7.6) and rebounds (3.0) this season.
“I definitely think she’s a huge key,” McGraw said. “I definitely think she’s a difficult matchup, because of her ability to stretch the floor, and she’s really embraced being inside this year too. I’m not sure she’s 100% healthy. She got a bloody nose in almost every game [late in the season]. I’m wondering if it’s even broken.
“She didn’t look 100% to me. I don’t know. So, I think this 10 days off is a pretty nice break. She missed all those games in the beginning. And she’s only played [18] games. That’s not a lot of games. I think she’ll be great in the tournament. And she’s somebody you can always count on.”
The 6-5 Koval, meanwhile, is averaging 5.7 points and 4.9 rebounds with a team-leading 48 blocked shots and counting — fifth-most by a freshman in program history.
“I’ve really been impressed with her,” McGraw said. “Happy to see she made the [ACC] all-rookie team, because I think she definitely has been a presence defensively all year long. She’s very difficult to shoot over, but offensively she’s really come along.
“I think she’s somebody that they can run the high-low, get some ball-screen action with her, and I think she can really be effective. And ball screen is something we’re usually pretty good at. So, between Liv [Miles] and Hannah [Hidalgo] coming off the ball screen, I think that could be a big part of the offense going forward.
“And I think she’s an important piece in the tournament, because you’re going to go up against some bigger kids now on some different teams. She’s not going to be able to guard on the perimeter, and I don’t think that’s something they’re looking for her to do. But I think our zone has looked good. And I think she can certainly give us a huge boost off the bench.”
Another key was ACC Player of the Year and ACC Defensive Player of the Year Hannah Hidalgo pulling out of a late-season offensive funk.
In the five games collectively heading into the regular-season finale against Louisville on March 2, Hidalgo was 26-of-88 from the field (.295) and 5-of-25 (.200) from the 3-point arc. In the Louisville game and two ACC Tourney games, the sophomore guard was 24-of-51 (.471) from the field and 4-of-5 from 3 (.800).
And in the Duke loss, Hidalgo tied her season-high with six steals.
“I thought Hannah had a terrific ACC Tourney,” McGraw said. “She played like the Player of the Year. I thought she was more relaxed, more comfortable, and just played her game as she has played pretty much for most of the year.
“I think she’s going to be really ready for the tournament. I’m not worried about her at all. I think she’s playing at a high level and ready to go.”
McGraw loved the long — almost two-week — gap between the end of the women’s conference tourneys and the start of the NCAAs. And she envisions it being a big boost for Ivey’s fifth squad.
“It almost always corresponded with our spring break [and does so this season as well],” McGraw said. “So, we would play Sunday in the ACC finals, and then I’d give them almost a week off.
“We came back by Selection Sunday — might have been Saturday — but I gave them a lot of time off. And I think it was a good mental break. It’s a great physical break. And I trusted them enough to know they’re going to stay in shape. They’re going to do what they’re supposed to do.
“And then they come back fresh. And then you have almost five days to prepare. You don’t know who you’re playing [yet], so it’s hard to practice when you don’t know who you’re playing. Then we’d put some new wrinkles in and a couple of different things that we’d want to switch up, so we weren’t so easy to scout. But we definitely gave them that break, and I thought it really helped us.”
The messaging from the coaching staff will change too when the players return, McGraw said, and so must the Irish players’ frame of mind.
“I would notice a real change in the players’ intensity,” McGraw said of her teams. “It was as if they came in and knew, ‘This is it. We’ve got to be great on every single possession.’ And I remember thinking, ‘We’ve got to cut this [practices] short, or they’re going to kill each other. The teams are just working so hard and it’s so intense.
“For this Notre Dame team what it’s going to come down to is each player saying, ‘What do I have to do individually to win? Do I have to do more? Do I have to do less? Do I have to do better defensively? Is it the offense? What is it going to be?’
“I think they’ll come in with a renewed kind of sense of team. I think we might have gotten away from that a little bit and need to get back to: 'How can we do this together?”
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